As an instructor, you have the option to participate in the Udemy Deals Program. This allows Udemy to use marketing data to optimize your course's list price and discount range in different markets around the world. Every year, millions of students enroll in courses discounted through the Udemy Deals Program, making it a powerful lever to help you maximize your revenue potential on Udemy. You can opt out of this program at any time by editing your promotional agreements.
How Udemy uses discounts to drive course sales
Udemy runs many types of promotions throughout the year to encourage students to find and enroll in instructors' courses. For example, Udemy may offer new students a one-time discount for signing up, or offer region-specific discounts to mark a local holiday like Boxing Day. Udemy may also offer discounts to accompany paid advertisements or content placements for some courses that attract new students to the platform.
How courses' discount prices are determined during a promotion
Udemy uses data science and economic modelling to determine each course's promotional price range. Hundreds of factors such as a course's category, length, and competitive context are used to generate an initial discount price range. This range is then adjusted automatically in response to the course's sales performance at different price points and in different markets. The system takes into account both price and student conversion rates and seeks to maximize each course's revenue potential over time.
Local price floors
Regardless of the promotion or a course's performance data, Udemy will not discount below $10 USD or local equivalent except in Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, South Africa, and Turkey, and in sales to Udemy’s resellers or distributors, where the price may be lower.
How to edit your Instructor Promotional Agreements
To change your promotional agreements please follow the steps below:
-
- Move your cursor to your profile picture in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
- Click on Payout settings from the dropdown menu.
- Under the payout options, click Manage Promotional Agreements.
- Scroll down to Udemy Deals Program and make a selection.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.
Opting out of the Udemy Deals Program as a published instructor
If you choose to opt out of the Udemy Deals Program after your course has been published, it may take up to 10 days for it to stop being offered at a discount on the Udemy site (for campaigns that started while you were opted in).
In addition to on-site promotions, please note that Udemy employs a variety of other marketing channels for instructors in the Deals Program (including emails, paid ads, affiliate marketing). It may take some time after your opt-out date before your courses are no longer promoted via these channels, but your courses will no longer be offered at a discount on the Udemy site 10 days after your opt-out date. This 10 day period helps ensure we honor discounts that have already been offered to students in active campaigns.
Your course will not be included in new discount campaigns that begin after the date you opted out. Please note that this will also affect your course's participation in external promotions such as search ads, social media placements, or retargeting.
Participation in Udemy Deals program is governed by the terms available here.
Legacy: Percentage Deals Program
The Percentage Deals program allowed Udemy to offer your course for a discount of up to and including 75% off the instructor-set base price (or slightly higher for rounding off prices).
As of April 23, 2020 the Percentage Promotions program has been deprecated. As a result, it is no longer available to instructors who did not opt in before that date. A full sunset of the program is expected by November 2020. More information regarding this is available in section 2.2 of the Promotions Policy.